


A Diamond in the Rain

by stateofintegrity



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-16 16:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3495230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sick and rain-soaked dwarf stumbles into Bag End and into the life of Bilbo Baggins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for all the changes; this is my first attempt at a Hobbit fic and I'm finding my way slowly.

A Diamond in the Rain

The “thump” that sounded outside the round, green door of Bilbo Baggins woke half the sleepers in Bagshot Row, but it was up to the one with a bit of Took in him to go outside and investigate. On that dreary night that left the lane half a trough, Bilbo found a curiously garbed and heavily armed stranger who ranted and cried out at the shrouded moon but who seemed unable to make it to his feet. The master of Bag End grew herbs enough in his garden to know their uses. He also knew that this unlucky stranger was suffering from drowned lung and some kind of fever and that his meadowsweet would be giving up its roots to cure it. 

Bilbo also knew at a glance that he was incapable of moving this unexpected visitor on his own. The stranger was taller than a hobbit and clearly more muscular. To make things even more difficult, his garb was covered with heavy oddments and adornments – all in metal from what Bilbo could see. Shaking his head at a fashion that seemed devoid of good hobbit sense, he wondered if the damp, heavy garb hadn’t been the reason the stranger was struggling with the mud. Those boots alone looked every bit as heavy as farmer Greenhand’s prize pumpkins. Fortunately, his neighbors had seen that he was still standing and had taken that as a signal to come out and help him. Together, six grown hobbits and a few tweens transported the fever-wracked and storm-wrecked guest out of the rain. It was too late when Bilbo saw that they were making for his snug and cozy hobbit hole and soon the soaked and unconscious creature was laid out on the long dining room table. (Fortunately, he was spared much of the indignity of the situation by passing out). 

“Is it one of the Big Folk?” asked Master Perlo Boffin, Bilbo’s neighbor from five doors down the Row. Having never left the Shire in recorded memory, the Boffins had never been entirely certain about the parameters of Big Folk. How big was big enough? And what about their young ones? As far as Master Boffin was concerned, this might be a Little Big One, only just on its way to growing into its right size. 

“Maybe it’s an elf,” offered Orlon Goodbody. “Though you can’t quite make out the ears for all the hair.”

Bilbo had been making noises of polite interruption throughout and now quite threw up his hands at the ignorance of his neighbors. Well-read and well-traveled enough to have encountered something of Middle Earth’s people besides hobbits, he felt quite certain about the race of the creature drying out all over the varnish of his mother’s table. “Sirs, if you please, I think I can make quick work of your riddle.”

They heard the warmth in his voice and turned to see that he had crossed his arms in sheer impatience. “Yes, Master Bilbo?” ventured Hamfast Gamgee, who had been the first out the door to help the adventurous Mr. Baggins. 

“This, my good friends and neighbors, is a dwarf. See all those metal ornaments? Dwarves favor such decorations. They announce their skill and craft without a single spoken boast.” He pretended to look over the dwarf, as if gathering clues. He rarely had an audience for the odd bits of lore and history that he had collected and he wasn’t about to waste this opportunity. “This dwarf has had a hard life, if I read rightly what I see before me. It’s no wonder he’s come down ill. He probably hasn’t seen a decent meal or soft bed in many days.” The last was a bit of exaggeration, but if these hobbits could look on a dwarf and imagine him an elf, then they might not question him.

“How do you know, Mr. Bilbo, sir?” asked one of the tweens. A Twofoot, Bilbo thought, by the look of him.

“Well, it’s all right here before you, my lad. These clothes have seen hard use in hard weather. See here? Notches have been added to draw tighter this belt. It’s either a hand-me-down, or this dwarf has gone from plenty to lack. It may be his good fortune that he had the sense to collapse in Hobbiton. If we can get him healed up enough to eat, we’ll see him fed before he goes back on his way.” He glanced around his audience, pleased to see that they were regarding him with a new sort of respect. “Now, who will take him on as a lodger?”

A volley of excuses almost spun Bilbo around. “We’ve younglings in the house,” said Hatlin Proudfoot. “We can’t have some wild, scruff-faced dwarf crashing about and frightening everyone half to death!”

Others pleaded lack of space or lack of skill. “I’ve no notion of healing dwarves, Master Bilbo,” said Hamfast, but he at least looked regretful.   
The Master of Bag End had the uncomfortable sensation of being the odd one out. “You’re a fine caretaker yourself, aren’t you Bilbo?” asked Perlo. “Your mother taught you, if I recall.”

“She did,” Bilbo began. He was cut off long before he ever got to add the word, “but.”

“And you’ve space enough, being a bachelor, and no faunts underfoot,” Orlon offered. Bilbo thought that he was being a little too quick to volunteer someone else’s hobbit hole. But before he could criticize this secondhand form of generosity, the group seemed to have accepted him as a solution. They offered to help, of course. Hobbits were nothing if not polite. There was a great deal of, “Anything you need, Master Bilbo, you just ask,” and promises to send over extra food and medicine. And then the lot of them vanished all at once, and Bilbo was left with a fire burned too low and a dwarf whose garments were dripping muddy water onto his favorite rug. 

Rolling up his sleeves, the hobbit sighed. “Well, I guess there’s nothing for it, then,” he said aloud. Living alone, Bilbo was in the habit of talking to himself, and the nameless dwarf was in no position to mind his quirks and peculiarities. 

Whatever these quirks might have led anyone to think, Bilbo Baggins was soft neither in nerve nor in mind. It was true that in recent years he had begun to settle into his ways; having no one to share his home with and no close kin left him the sole master of his universe and he just about had everything where and how he liked it. (His reading chair was positioned just so; the afternoon light had no power to torment him out of whatever read he had curled up with. Likewise, the hobbit’s bed covers were rotated at exactly the right time of the year, the heavy quilt being replaced by a knitted throw and spring sheets stored in cedar and scented with lavender.) Despite this bit of settling and a lifelong and very hobbit-like penchant for that which was comfortable, Bilbo was no stranger to hard work. 

First, he rolled up the rug that his uninvited and exotic guest was dripping muddy water onto. Hole or not, no respectable hobbit smial had any truck with dirt. Next, he stoked the fire to cooking strength and lugged Belladonna’s drying racks out from one of the smial’s numerous storage spaces. Bilbo then placed the dwarf’s sodden cape over one rack and his heavy boots beneath it.

It must be admitted that Bilbo hesitated at what came next. Any self-respecting hobbit would have paused at such a trespass, and Bilbo had less experience than most when it came to divesting any body but his own of its garb. To stall, he put the tea kettle on (trials were always easier faced with tea) and gnawed a bit at his bottom lip before making his way back to the dwarf. He might have stood there shifting his weight from foot to foot until morning, but the dwarf began to shiver. 

That faint, fine motion decided him, and Bilbo set to work on the heavy clasps adorning the dwarf’s tunic. “I do ask your pardon, Master Dwarf,” he said to his unconscious guest. “But drowned lung isn’t something to play about with, especially in wet clothes. It carried off poor Hedderidge Bracegirdle last harvest-time and he was in the prime of health. Had just eaten an entire Gingersnap and Pumpkin Pie, come to think of it.” A rueful smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I’d be pleased to make you the pie of your choosing if you’d do me the favor of coming out of your sleep, you know,” he confided. “It would make this all a good deal less awkward.” 

It turned out that pies were not an effective bribe; the dwarf stayed moored in fevered slumber, leaving Bilbo to curse at what seemed to be a dwarven fashion: layering. When he’d gotten to the third shirt (this one fashioned of tiny links of shimmering, sliding, silver-white metal rings), the hobbit began to despair (and to wonder whether he owned drying racks enough to accommodate a dwarven wardrobe). After one final thin shirt (even dwarves did not wear mail directly against the skin, the hobbit was happy to see), Bilbo scandalized himself by crying aloud, “Skin! Finally!”

Realizing what he’d said, Bilbo blushed to his curly hair and drew a hasty hand to his mouth. The only mercy he could find was that at least no one had heard. But then his eyes focused on the pale expanse of the dwarf’s torso and he was lost. 

The skin of the dwarf’s face and arms was darkened by the sun, making the area from his throat to his waist appear as bright as the moon. Whiter still were the jagged scars that crossed the dwarf’s muscled abdomen; Bilbo had never seen so many scars or so many muscles before and his hobbit eyes were very wide. Some secret, never-before-encountered part of Bilbo Baggins expressed a keen desire to trace the wicked white marks, to compare the feel of them to the rest of the dwarf. And then there were the dark whorls and symbols climbing like vines over the dwarf’s ribs. Bilbo didn’t even know the name for such rich, dark markings. They were so deeply blue-black that he imagined that his fingers would come away wet if he dared to touch them. 

“Now you stop this right this minute, Mr. Baggins!” he heard himself say, the un-Tookish part of him making itself known. “This dwarf needs help, not gawking!”

Shaking off his momentary trance, Bilbo went back to work with a renewed vigor and a resolution to think of the visitor as nothing more than a sick hobbit in need of aid. When his curiosity reared up at seeing the maker’s mark on the dwarf’s weapons, he shooed it away and kept on with his task. In no time at all, the dwarf was dried and wrapped in enough quilts and comforters to warm an entire extended hobbit family. Bilbo could do nothing in the way of medicine for either the fever or the disease while his visitor remained unconscious, but he felt that his breathing sounded less like a rusted sword being drawn from its sheath – a sign he took for promising. 

Hoping that the morning would bring more good news (perhaps the dwarf would wake up!) Bilbo too himself toward his own rest. Pausing before his dresser mirror, the hobbit regarded himself with a fond, rueful smile. “Well, Mr. Baggins,” he addressed his reflection, “what sort of adventure have you gotten yourself into now?”  
The only answer he got was a well-deserved yawn.


	2. Chapter 2

The damp and exhilarating (by Hobbit standards, anyway) night passed into a dreary dawn. Stiff from having taken too little sleep (and, he suspected, from the work of piling half a dwarven armory in the pantry), Bilbo rose, dressed, checked on his charge, readied a substantial breakfast, and walked out into the morning dew to collect herbs to counter the illness of the dwarf he had taken in.

“Fellow needs a name,” Baggins murmured to himself as he brushed the damp earth away from the roots of a fragile glassflower. “Wouldn’t keep a kitten two days without finding something to _call_ it.” His brow furrowed as he tried to think of particularly dwarvish names. Fierce things, he thought of, and hard things – things made to endure and things that refused to bend. As he thought, he passed under the shade of an oak and gave it a considering look. It grew strong and straight into the wind and its bark was as hard as armor. _But there is a live and glowing heart within_ , thought the hobbit. _An oak may be a shelter as well as a barricade_. He conjured up the image of the dwarf – his chiseled, noble features, proud and stern, his strength. _A warrior, that one_ , thought Bilbo. _A proud protector. But I wager that anyone who takes on that kind of work – dwarf or hobbit – must have something he loves enough to protect. Something soft that needs his strength and his sturdiness._

Resolving to call his guest Oakheart (at least, out of anyone’s hearing) Bilbo turned his bare feet back toward his cozy hobbit hole. He was only just lifting a dish of baked apples away from the flames when he was confronted by a sleep-mussed, wild-eyed dwarf, dressed mostly in blankets.

“Thief!” the dwarf snarled, upon catching sight of Bilbo. “Brazen burglar! How dare you enter these halls after you have plundered them of all I love? Does my pain bring you more pleasure than the jewels you have stolen from me? Have you wearied already of the weapons made by my forefathers and by my own hands? What more will you have of me?”

Blushing furiously at the sight of so much bare, livid dwarven flesh, Bilbo would have actually had _less_ if possible, but he didn’t think the jest would carry. “Sir, Master Dwarf, I think, perhaps, you see, that there’s been something of a mistake here.”

“A mistake!?” the dwarf roared. “You claim that you have mistakenly robbed me of all that gives worth and meaning to my life?”

By this time, the noise had drawn Bilbo’s neighbors out of their homes and almost to his windows. Hamfast Gamgee was considering forming a rescue party for the unfortunate caretaker Baggins, when Bilbo whirled to the windows. “We don’t need any well-wishers, visitors, or distant relations!” he snapped at the gathering hobbits. “If you want to make yourselves useful, you’re welcome to send over tea, honey, broth, and medicine. Now, good day to the lot of you!” The slamming of the window shutters sent the hobbits back into their homes and left Bilbo Baggins facing down the red-faced, trembling dwarf alone. Eyes still glazed with sickness, he seemed to be unable to process the rapid appearance and disappearance of the Shirelings, but continued to harangue Bilbo about his possessions and the “mountain” that Bilbo had conquered.

Screwing up his courage, Bilbo placed his hands on his hips. “Master Dwarf, you are too weak to continue carrying on in this fashion,” he scolded. “And,” he added, blushing up to his curly hair, “you’re quite losing control of your covers.”

“You have stolen even my _clothes_!? Have you no shame, burglar?”

Bilbo groaned and dropped his head into his hands. Several more moments of ranting passed as he struggled to master himself and patiently begin again. “Master Dwarf, if you will look around, you will see that we are not in a mountain, but in a hobbit hole. The clock you are standing before belonging to my mother’s father. When I was a child, I used to trace the flowers carved on it. Those curtains were sewed by my aunt Pansy as a wedding gift for my mother.” He went on listing and pointing and saw the dwarf began to shiver with a new bout of chills. For awhile, he thought that he still wouldn’t be believed. The scatters seemed to be the deciding factor. What self-respecting dwarf would scatter glass ornaments in the shape of leaves and acorns across a perfectly good table for no good reason.

“I… I have been ill,” the dwarf said at last.

“You _are_ quite ill,” Bilbo corrected. “But the Shire is a friendly land. You can rest and get well here. Will you sit down now? You’ve worked yourself up into quite a state.”

The dwarf seemed ready to resist, but buckled under the glower Bilbo aimed at him. “Lead on Master…” His brow furrowed. “Forgive me. You have shown me care and I do not even know your name or… or quite what you are.”

The latter didn’t surprise the hobbit at all. There were many Big Folk in the world with little knowledge of hobbits. “Bilbo Baggins,” he introduced himself. “A hobbit of the Shire.”

“Thorin Oakenshield at your service.” The dwarf made to bow and almost lost all of his coverings before recovering and acting as though nothing at all had happened.

Bilbo looked away to hide a smile and another blush. When he looked back, he tried to be as stern as he could. “The service you can offer me right now, Master Oakenshield, is to get yourself back to bed and to rest until your strength returns.”

Thorin surprised them both by going without a word of protest.


	3. Chapter 3

For the next few days, Master Baggins of Bag End and Thorin Oakenshield (still Oakheart in Bilbo’s thoughts; he had been quite taken aback when the dwarf’s name matched so closely the name he had invented!) fell into a sort of pattern. The dwarf drowsed, passing in and out of fever and fevered dreams, muttering in his own tongue (Bilbo wrote down the phrases in hopes of learning more of the secret language of the dwarves) and Bilbo covered him when he shivered and stoked the fire, using up most of the late winter wood. When Thorin grew too warm, the hobbit used a cool cloth to wipe the sweat from his broad brow, careful to avoid his beard. What he knew of dwarves came only from stories and traveler’s tales, but he knew that their beards were precious to them and decided that Thorin could see to that part of his grooming when he grew well enough. The dwarf didn’t like it one bit, but Bilbo often held a spoon to his lips; Thorin’s hands shook too much to see to the task himself.

“I cannot let you feed me, Master hobbit!” he had exclaimed at first – the effect weakened somewhat by the raspy edge of his voice and the still-labored sound of his breathing.

Bilbo had only smiled, spoon held to his lips. He had cousins enough to have fed stubborn fauntlings by the dozens, and Thorin’s retreat into formality rather charmed him. He had known the dwarf only a short while, but he already recognized this maneuver as a sign that Thorin was feeling vulnerable – and didn’t like it. “Well Master dwarf,” he began, hoping the savory smell of the apple soup would do much of his work for him, “you’re in no fit shape to stop me.”

Thorin grinned – mostly because the food smelled so good. When Erebor was reclaimed, he vowed to look into hiring Hobbiton trained chefs for the kitchens. He knew he was outmatched – by a hobbit, no less – made defenseless in the face of Bilbo’s gentle, patient stubbornness. “Give me the bowl, Bilbo. I can manage that much, I’m sure of it.”

If he had been alone, Bilbo would have taken that moment to scold the fingers of his left hand. They had uncurled at his side and had clear designs on brushing the dwarf’s hair back from his fever-flushed face. Those silver strands woven through the dark… they did something to the most Tookish, bold, adventurous parts of him – parts he had thought dead to the root. The hobbit shook his head at such mad fancies. “I’ve seen patrons leave their seats at The Green Dragon after hours of drink and come home with hands steadier than yours.”

Bilbo found it encouraging that Thorin felt well enough to roll his dark eyes. “Skilled at healing you may be, Master Baggins, but your flattering tongue leaves something to be desired.”

 _That voice_ – Bilbo imagined that it had taken its flavor from black mountain pools that lay undisturbed beneath vaults of stone – it was hard to realize that a voice of such power and beauty, such command, _could_ tease! Suppressing a shiver that had _absolutely no business_ wanting to wend its way up his spine, he drew himself up and became the primmest version of a proper hobbit that he could manage. “If it was flattery you came seeking, Master dwarf, then I fear you’re lacking the sparkle and shine dwarves are so known for. You’re missing your cloth of gold and silver clasps, your fine armor and weapons with gems in their hilts.”

As well as he could with so little air in his lungs, Thorin gave into laughter when he recognized his teasing returned. Satisfied that he was winning their bout, Bilbo added, “And you had few enough flattering words for _me_ when first you woke.”

The dwarf sobered at that. “The fever made you into someone… some _thing_ else. I am sorry that I frightened you and your neighbors.” In the days since he had arrived, he’d caught a glimpse of the other hobbits as they dropped off gifts of food and wood for the fire. Thorin had no doubt that generous impulses motivated such gifts, but it was clear that hobbits were curious things, as well. Bilbo was forever chasing someone away from the windows and apologizing for their inquisitiveness. “We see so few Big Folk,” he had explained.

“I was more frightened _for_ you than _of_ you,” said the hobbit, “so no apology is needed. I’m glad you’re mending.”

“I noted the backbone in you from the first,” said the dwarf. “I did not expect to find such mettle in so small a creature.”

Bilbo was not quite finished being cheeky. “I’m sure elves and men have said as much of dwarves.”

It was clear that if he had possessed the strength to do so, Thorin would have tackled his small caretaker and wrestled a better sense of dwarves into him. He settled for a dangerous look that suggested the score would be evened later. “If elves or men spoke thus, they did so at their peril. You should have a care, Master Baggins. I will not always be confined to this bed.”

“No, you’re coming along far faster than any hobbit would, that’s certain.”

“Durin’s folk are hardy,” Thorin replied. “Hardy, perhaps, even unto holding crockery.”

Bilbo tugged at one of his curls in annoyance. “Stubborn creature,” he called him, before carefully positioning the small bowl in his large hands. Thorin wondered if his fever was worse than he thought; for a moment, the touch of those small hands had seemed to warm him more than the sweet, steaming dish.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

For all of its years thereafter, the Shire would remember that early spring day as an anniversary of The Descent of the Dwarves (hobbits being fond of alliteration).

It must be borne in mind that it was not clear at the outset that a true descent was in progress. Anyone who suggested as much would have been laughed at. “As well to call three bumbles among the blossoms a swarm,” some respectable thick-waisted hobbit dame would have said, “or half a dozen berries atop a cake a bushel!” The invasion of the Shire began small – small as two acorns dropped from wind-tormented heights that grow to be mighty breaks upon that same wind – and the word descent went unspoken.

While events were still in motion (and unguessed by those upon whom they would act), Thorin lay long abed in the late morning and wondered when he had last rested so. Memories long unvisited rose up in his mind and suggested that his mother had still been alive when he had last permitted himself to sink so deeply into a mattress. Who else could have bullied him into comfort when he would have resisted rest on principle? An odd brew of emotions bubbled up inside of him; he felt anger at his weakness, but comfort in the odd dwelling outside of which he had fallen in the rain. Bilbo’s hobbit hole was not underground, being cut into the hillside, but it suited him better than a man’s house or some elven perch in a tree. He had come to enjoy the rhythms of Bilbo’s life. The smell of drying herbs soothed him and his fingers seemed to enjoy the touch of soft cloth after years of metal work and sword hilt. He had lived hard and been proud of his hardness; he had nearly forgotten what a gift comfort could be.

His comfort was not meant to last into the afternoon; a most un-hobbit-like banging sounded at the round, green door. Thorin heard rather than saw Bilbo leap up, and listened as his perpetually shoe-less feet pattered across the honey-colored boards and throw rugs. “Half a moment! Half a moment!”

At the sound of Bilbo’s voice, the banging only increased. Thorin could just make out the sound of anxious voices and he propped himself up, preparing to dive for his sword if the need arose. When the door opened, the chorus of voices swept into the dwelling with the force of a waterfall hurtling toward distant rocks. To Bilbo, it must have been purest cacophony, but Thorin laughed aloud with joy. “Fili!” he cried. “Kili! Nephews!”

Stampeding quite over Bilbo – it was a good thing that hobbit feet were so very tough – his nephews launched himself in the direction of his voice. Scatters leapt from the end tables and doilies spontaneously unwound themselves at their passage (or so Thorin imagined) and they both tried to say everything at once. Then they were before him – one light and one dark – looking on him with loving eyes. Weak as he was, he could only hold onto them. When he looked up, Bilbo was smiling in the doorway. “Your family, I take it.”

“The best part of it, aye,” said Thorin, nuzzling first against dark hair and then against gold and hoping his uncharacteristic sentimentality might be overlooked as part of his illness. “These are my nephews. Fili, Kili, meet Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit and my rescuer.”

Bilbo blushed and sputtered at all that rescuer business (and Thorin rather liked the strawberry shine of it), but he welcomed these newest dwarves and laughed at how they began to talk over one another again, apologizing for all they had accused him of on the doorstep. Apparently wild rumors had reached them that Thorin had been set upon by a tiny race of gardening folk who had carried his prone body off into the night.

Bilbo stood unruffled before them, though one corner of his mouth kept trying to lift into a look of amusement. “Lads, I made out about one word in ten. I can hardly be offended by what I didn’t hear!”

His answer won them over immediately – well, his answer and his transformation back into proper hobbit host – complete with cups of tea and trays of crackers and cakes. Thorin watched Bilbo bustle about with a smile and he reminded himself to ask why such a caretaking creature had no family of his own.

Fili and Kili were only the beginning.

Soon, Bilbo was answering the door almost every hour, swinging it wide to find a dwarf or pair of dwarves bobbing on the mat. At first, residents of the Row just looked out their window at this parade of fierce people in their colorful caps. By the time Dwalin arrived, they had taken seats on fence rails and under the shrubbery – and they were _clapping_ for especially good bows.

Bilbo scarcely had time to worry about hobbits – he was busy feeding _dwarves_. At one point, Nori made a joke about setting up a trough and a wild light came into the eyes of Mr. Baggins. He _was_ tempted!

Between filling tankards, slicing cheeses, and burrowing deeper and deeper into the third pantry, Bilbo found time to pop a flushed face into the sickroom turned audience chamber. “You might have mentioned you were a king!”

Thorin pretended to study an intricate flower pattern that had been worked into the comforter. “Didn’t I?”

“And that your whole court would come seeking you! Thank all that’s good for Mirabelle Bolger and all those pies she sent over!”

“Would you like a hand, Master Baggins?”

Bilbo gave him a glare that would have skewered a warg. “No, your ailing majesty, I would not.”

“It was not my hands I offer. I would not undo all that you’ve done to heal me. Take my nephews.”

“Your _heirs_!” Bilbo squeaked, scandalized.

“Heirs of a dragon-guarded mountain and a dragon-guarded  treasure, actually,” said Fili.

“So it’s really just a title,” his brother seconded.

“They will be no less royal for dunking their hands in dishwater, Master Baggins,” said Thorin.

As Fili and Kili were washing up, Thorin’s companions made their way singly or in pairs to his side. Their faces told him much. He could see his reflection in their eyes. He had grown thin and, though mending, he was not yet well. The quest was in jeopardy. Plans would have to be forged anew. As it turned out, the one who did the reforging had never lifted a hammer in his life!

“Absolutely not!” Bilbo exclaimed when the dwarves had told him their story. Their song had been haunting – stirring even his respectable, comfort-loving heart with its talk of wild places and enchanted gold – but the strum of a few harp strings wasn’t enough to override plain hobbit sense. Thorin listened to their council from his sickbed, and more than once he almost lifted his voice to be brought out among the company.

“You’ll kill him,” he told them. _There. Plain as bread crumbs_. “I don’t care how hardy your folk are. It will be autumn before he has the strength to walk the Row – to say nothing of running off on some fool adventure.” It was clear from his flashing eyes that Bilbo Baggins of Bag End was prepared to protect his charge – with frying pan and fire poker if need be – and the scolded company of Thorin Oakenshield hid its smile in their beards.

“Autumn,” murmured Ori. “Mountain passes in winter, then.”

“Frozen rivers,” added Dwalin. “Poor hunting.”

“So don’t go!”  This was the hobbit again. “At least, don’t go yet. You’re welcome here.”

Thorin’s eyes bulged. Bilbo had known him for mere days, his company for mere hours. Such generosity was the thing of songs and tales! On a more practical level – how would they all fit? How big _was_ a hobbit hole?

He heard his company considering and almost laughed, albeit a bit hysterically. A hobbit taking in thirteen dwarves? It was the stuff of a child’s story, amusing incidents awaiting around every corner! But he knew his companions. They would not leave him and Bilbo would see him well. King though he was, Thorin had no say.

 

 


End file.
